Utility Setup Cost Calculator

The calculator gives each utility its own fixed deposit, setup fee, and monthly figure — electricity carries a $200 deposit, $25 setup, and $130/month, while internet carries no deposit at all, just a $50 setup fee and $75/month. That reflects a real-world pattern: internet and cable providers typically don't require a security deposit from new customers the way electric, gas, and water utilities do, since there's no physical usage risk they're covering.

It adds a flat $150 to Total Setup/Activation Fees, representing the combined typical cost of getting a new driver's license and re-registering a vehicle in the new state. This isn't a utility cost at all — it's included because it's a real first-month cash expense that's easy to overlook when you're focused specifically on utility deposits and connection fees.

Each utility only contributes to totalDeposits, totalSetupFees, and monthlyEstimate when its input is set to 1 (enabled). Setting electricity or water to 0 — for example, because it's bundled into your rent — removes all three of its cost components entirely rather than just skipping the deposit, since you also wouldn't pay a setup fee or an ongoing bill for a service you're not personally establishing.

The engine multiplies monthlyEstimate by a flat 12 with no seasonal adjustment, so it doesn't account for real month-to-month variation like higher electric bills during summer AC or winter heating months. It's meant as a simple annualized baseline for budgeting, not a seasonally accurate forecast — homes with electric heating or cooling should expect actual bills to swing above and below this flat average throughout the year.